


Mona Lisa Smile

by TerrusDacktellus



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Grief, Post Series, implied Spuffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 23:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5109926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerrusDacktellus/pseuds/TerrusDacktellus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith comforts Buffy after the events of Chosen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mona Lisa Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my 1k promptathon on Tumblr, for the prompt "Buffy getting pissy with Spike and having an argument with him about the Faith scene in the basement in Season 7. But with reconciliation. Alternatively, Faith comforting Buffy after Spike’s death in Chosen" from mearcats. Obviously, I went with the alternate option.

She looked so adult. Faith had always felt that Buffy was the older one, and she was, by a year or so, but now that distance seemed to have stretched to light years, eons. In some weird way, she reminded her of an elf from one of those fantasy movies Andrew was so obsessed with, timeless, ageless, sorta above your mere human emotions. Shit, she needed a drink. 

Moving stiffly, every muscle spasming with the stress of what felt like the longest day of her life, Faith sat beside the other slayer on the steps, and looked out onto the busy street. In LA, the traffic never stopped, even at night. Especially outside a hospital. 

“Girls and Robin all bedded down,” she announced, when Buffy didn’t seem inclined to say anything. “Docs got ‘em all stitched up and drugged up.” 

Buffy just drew her knees in close to her chest, and peered out over them at the ceaseless stream of flashing headlights. 

“Giles is looking for a place for the rest of us to stay. Said there’s some old watcher safe house or something.” 

Still nothing. 

“Buffy?”

Buffy turned her head to look at her, pillowed on her knees and smiled at her, a look strangely at odds with that vulnerable, childish position, all scrunched up and bundled in on herself. Her smile was serene and gentle and absent in every way that counted.

“That’s good,” she said quietly. 

Faith lit up, not knowing what else to do and Buffy watched with a curious intensity, her eyes following every movement, tracking the smoke as she exhaled it. Faith was struck by a sudden memory of the last time she’d had a quiet smoke in company like this, and the memory of Buffy’s face when she’d found them together followed quickly on its heels. She examined her face a little more closely, trying to be subtle about it. Had she been crying? It was impossible to tell. 

“What?” said Buffy. Oops, not so subtle then.

“Blondie didn’t make it out,” she said, giving up on tact entirely. 

The Mona Lisa smile wavered and when she spoke, it was so quiet, Faith could hardly hear her over the sound of the cars rushing by. “No. He didn’t.” 

It was entirely unnerving, seeing Buffy ‘My personality is as perky as my boobs’ Summers this quiet, this flattened and Faith felt her guts twist into an uncomfortable knot of guilt. She was all too familiar with that these days. Shit, shit, shit, she’d gone back to dear ol’ SunnyD to help the person she owed the most and she’d just kept on screwing her over, hadn’t she?

“B, I’m sorry I flirted with your boy,” she said awkwardly. “I didn’t realise you guys were …”

“We weren’t anything,” said Buffy too quickly, then grimaced. “We — I thought we’d have more time.” 

“Shit, B, I’m sorry, look, if it helps, he was crazy about you. The way he talked about you — you were his hero, he’d have done anything for you. Could see it in his eyes.”

“I know,” said Buffy. “It’s okay. You don’t need to comfort me or anything, I’m not — I’m not sad.” 

Faith hid her very incredulous expression by taking an extra long drag on her cigarette. Buffy’s lip trembled as she watched the cloud of smoke tumble out into the night air. 

“But I’m not exactly happy, either,” she admitted in a whisper. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, like she was trying to hold the tears in, but they slipped out and slid in wet, perfect lines down her cheeks. The green eyed monster chose the most ridiculous moments to butt in, thought Faith, but jeez, she even looked beautiful when she was crying. How was that fair?

“I’m just so proud,” said Buffy and she laughed wetly. “I’m just so proud of him, I could burst and I’m never going to get to tell him.”

She swiped at her eyes with her sleeve and snorted. “You know, he’d just be unbearable if he was here,” she went on. “I can almost hear him bragging.” 

She broke off abruptly, that ‘almost’ ringing loudly in the silence that followed and Faith felt an echo of her pain in that moment. She hadn’t known Spike that well, or liked him particularly, but in that moment, she felt the eternal almost that was stretching out ahead of Buffy, almost hearing him laugh, almost catching a whiff of cigarette smoke, almost seeing his coat swirl out of the corner of her eye. It wasn’t happy and it wasn’t sad, but the dull reverberation of it rang inside her like a bell, the nearly tangible memory of him fading forever. Helplessly, she reached out and patted Buffy very awkwardly on the shoulder a couple of times, before letting her hand drop. She had no idea what to say, so she just sat there. 

Buffy hugged her knees again and hid her face for a while. 

“He was just so good in that last moment,” she said finally. “So very good. So that’s how I’m going to remember him.” She lifted her chin as if daring Faith to challenge her. “That’s what I’m going to do tonight. I’m going to sit here and I’m going to remember him.” 

“Want some company?” Faith tried for flip. “I got nowhere to be.”

“I’d like that.” 

She settled in, trying to get comfortable on the not very comfortable stone. Her cigarette had burned out. “Mind if I smoke?” she asked, figuring better late than never.

Buffy’s smile was heartbreaking. “Not at all,” she said.


End file.
